These days there is a lot of talk about widescreen. DVDs feature letterboxed or widescreen versions of films, new TV sets on the market feature widscreen (16:9) picture tubes, and new HDTV video cameras shoot video with widescreen aspect ratios. Even some commercials that are intended to be shown on regular, old TV sets (with width-to-height aspect ratios of 4:3) use artificial widescreen framing in order to impart a "classy", "professional" look. But is widescreen really any better than good old 4:3?
It's debatable whether humans actually prefer widescreen over than 4:3 but that's not stopping the industry. When you look into the origins of widescreen films, it turns out that they were originally nothing more than a marketing gimmick dreamt up by Hollywood in the 50s specifically to thwart TV.

Opening Credits
Originally, all movies were made using a 4:3 aspect ratio because they were based on the film used in the Eastman-Walker Roll Holder Camera (patented by George Eastman and William Walker in 1885). In 1889 Eastman introduced 35mm celluloid-based transparent, flexible film for his Roll Holder cameras. The 35mm film frames that Eastman used just happened to be 33% wider than they were tall (usually expressed as 4:3 ratio or sometimes 1.33 to 1).

In 1889 Thomas Edison ordered specially designed rolls of the new transparent, flexible film from the Eastman company for use in his development of a motion-picture camera. Eastman saw a market for movie film and soon started full-scale production.

(Historical Note: Transparent, flexible film was actually invented and patented by Reverend Hannibal Goodwin in 1887 and in 1914 Eastman was sued for infringing that patent. Eastman was forced to pay five million dollars in cash as part of the settlement.)

Even though there were a few companies making movie film in different sizes over the next few decades in 1927 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officially made 1.33 to 1 the industry standard, it later became known as the Academy Aperture, and nearly every film made from 1917 to 1952 used this aperture. (Just in case you were wondering - there are no "widescreen" versions of King Kong, Casablanca, or Gone With The Wind.) Apparently Hollywood (and the public) thought that 4:3 was perfectly fine for the next 60 years.

NEXT: The Evil Television

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